Tom Burns: 25 Things Dads Should Teach Their Kids

Tom Burns: 25 Things Dads Should Teach Their Kids

These days, when Tom Burns sneezes, the parent blogger world catches a cold. So it goes for his latest, a piece called “25 Things I Think Every Dad Should Teach His Kids,” which appeared on The Good Men Project and then made the jump up to The Huffington Post.

Burns outlines his life’s tips that sound like a sequel to Baz Luhrmann’s “Everybody’s Free”, including gems such as “Even though, yes, I just admitted that I don’t know everything, pointing that out when we’re arguing is never going to work in your favor.”

I won’t copy Burns’ list, but will give you a couple of other favorites:

If a grown-up, corporation, religion, teacher, boss, and/or significant other tells you that they, in fact, do know everything, that they speak the absolute truth, that’s called fundamentalism, which is a fancy way of saying that they’re lying.

One day, in the future, during a job interview, someone will ask you “What’s your greatest weakness?” This isn’t an invitation to be honest. This is a test to see how well you can answer a stupid question.

I’ll tell you this — I promise you will never be alone and, even after you die, we will always be together. And there is no one in heaven or on Earth who can prove that that isn’t true.

Science both answers questions and keeps discovering new questions to ask. This is why science is awesome.

The only disappointing thing is that there’s no mention in Burns’ list about the proper order in which to do the bosses in Mega Man 2, or how to speed run The Legend of Zelda.